


He Loved Me, He Came For Me

by Entwinedlove



Series: The Great October Challenge 2017 [56]
Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Child Zombie, F/M, Minor Character Death, Religious Cults, attempted suicide by zombie, death of a child
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-20
Updated: 2017-10-20
Packaged: 2019-08-07 06:13:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16402829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Entwinedlove/pseuds/Entwinedlove
Summary: This is the way "He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not" might have ended if I hadn't abandoned it.





	He Loved Me, He Came For Me

**Author's Note:**

> Written for NaNo's Misfits's 31 Days of Fanfiction Challenge  
> day 20 prompt: a never-finished fic
> 
> [ ](https://i.imgur.com/WiPeD9V.jpg)

Daisy was pissed. Her supposed rescuers had helped her deliver her baby and then taken him from her. Told her she was too sinned to keep him. Despite fighting her way out of drug addiction and climbing out of poverty by doing something she enjoyed but these religious fanatics disapproved of, she wasn't good enough to keep him. Well, she would show them. She sat looking over the compound, scrapping at narrow strips of wood making arrows.

They were well armed, she knew that, but she'd been trained to hunt from a young age. She would just be hunting humans instead of animals. She didn't think there was much difference these days.

She didn't expect to make it out alive. She'd lost Merle in Atlanta, lost Daryl outside the farm when the herd had ploughed through. She thought these people had been her lucky break. Except they were crazy. Crazy beyond Herschel's hope for a miracle. They'd taken her child and she was going to get him back.

She approached their compound from the east after dark. It was their least defended access point. She forced herself to work around her aching, leaking breasts. How were they feeding her son? She probably shouldn't be moving as much as she was but Daisy felt she had no choice. She climbed the tree near the access point then eased to the limb and hung down onto the platform. She crouched and canvased the area.

She sunk an arrow into each of the guard's heads and then skirted the outside of the main building. Systematically, she slunk through the compound, loosing arrows into the unsuspecting patrols. There were a few arrows that missed their mark, those homemade ones, whether because she'd accidentally curved the shafts or skimped on the makeshift feathers. One of them dropped down at just the right angle to pierce the throat of Yvonne, the one who'd taken her son from her. The white and brown feathers she filched from the bird's nest beyond the compound walls decorated her dirty throat like jewellery and her scarlet blood stained the front of her dress like a bib.

Daisy felt no remorse.

Finally, she found herself in the small room, an emptied closet really, that they'd set aside for the baby. She walked in on silent steps, not wanting to wake him. In the dim light of dawn, she could see his pale skin. Why wasn't he covered with a blanket? It was winter and cool in the room. She stepped closer and cooed at him, reached down to touch him.

His skin was cold and she felt a moment of a panic but then he stirred and her heart started to soar. This was her son! He was so small. She started to reach into the crib with one hand, reached up to free her breasts with the other when he opened his eyes. Milky, dead eyes.

Daisy's breath caught in her throat and she stumbled back a step. "No," she whispered. The baby reached out to her, opened his mouth like he wanted her milk, but she couldn't bring herself to touch him, to pick him up. He didn't cry like a baby should, instead, he made a sick whining sound. He didn't have the teeth to bite or the strength in his limbs to tear at flesh. He would always be that small, always be there on his back. Did the walking dead starve?

She sat on the floor and stared at the crib, at the abhorrence inside. She deliberated kept her back to the door. She had no desire to continue living. She had fought for her son, had survived for him, but he didn't need her any longer. Not like that.

She didn't know how long she sat there. If her stomach growled or ached for nourishment she didn't notice. If her legs and rump went numb, she didn't care. Her breasts ached. And still, she sat there looking at the crib. The baby had gone quiet again.

There was a shuffling sound and that ragged breathing that alerted her to a walking corpse. She closed her eyes and tried not to be scared. She debated praying but prayer never seemed to help anyone. Not Herschel and his wife, not these fanatics, not her son.

She felt a tug on her hair and she held her breath.

There was a twang of a crossbow bolt firing and the thud of a body falling and Daisy wondered if she'd started hallucinating. She hadn't taken anything, hadn't even eaten any of the mushrooms out in the woods. Quiet, deliberate footsteps headed her way and then she might have prayed.

"Daisy," Daryl called into the quiet. She felt him reach down and touch her shoulder, her hair. "I thought I'd lost you," he murmured. "Is that...?"

"No," she said, her voice dry and quiet. "No, our son is dead. That's something else."

He stepped around her, walked to the crib and leaned down. The baby made that whining sound again, reached for his father's hand. Daisy watched impassively as Daryl reached down and stroked the little child's hair, a little tuff of brown like his. He pulled his hunting knife from the sheath. He leaned over the crib. She didn't want to watch but she forced herself. She watched as Daryl gently held the baby's head, turned it, and slid his knife into the back. The baby's feeble movements stilled.

He removed the knife, wiped its blade on his pants in an unconscious move and tucked it back into its sheath. He caressed the infant's head again and then picked up a blanket from the edge of the crib Daisy hadn't seen. He carefully picked up the child, held his head and neck like he knew that was what he should do, and bundled the newborn up in the blanket. He fashioned a sling and cradled the baby to his chest.

When he finally turned to look at her she heard him sniff, an oddly wet snuffle. Daisy couldn't bring herself to cry. "Come on," he told her.

"I don't have any arrows left," she said feebly, attempting to raise her bow and wincing at the ache in her breasts. He reached down and helped her stand.

"Why didn't you take them from the bodies as you went?" he asked, gesturing to the corpse behind her. Daisy let her gaze travel over the walker. It was Yvonne. Her makeshift arrow decorating her throat. Daryl reached down and pulled his bolt from her skull. He'd pierced her eye socket and the eye deflated and a pocket of goo splashed up as he tugged the bolt from her brain.

"Didn't plan to come back out."

He picked up his crossbow from where he'd set it by the door and handed her a bundle of her hot pink feathered arrows that he must have gathered on the way in. "Well, that was a stupid plan, wasn't it?" he asked.


End file.
